Author
|
Topic: Review Wolverine Reels2Digital MovieMaker 8mm film digitizer
|
|
|
Bruce Davis
Film Handler
Posts: 47
From: Adelaide, Australia
Registered: Sep 2019
|
posted October 18, 2019 04:37 AM
David Brown thanks for the advice about re-sample. When cropping from either the 1920x1080 or the 2592x1944, the remaining resolution is the same, in other words the pixel density does not change so there is no difference that I can determine.
I captured the same super 8 frame with 1920x1080 and 2592x1944, saved as bitmaps:- 1920x1080 = 6,076 KB 2592x1944 = 14,763 KB
Cropped both in Photoshop to exactly the same size (one super 8 frame size):- 1920x1080 after cropping is now 1334x965 pixels = 3,774 KB 2592x1944 after cropping is now 1334x965 pixels = 3,774 KB
When zoomed in both images display exactly the same pixel size. There is no digital zoom, the different res settings just uses more or less of the sensor area to capture. Regards - Bruce
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Mike Spice
Master Film Handler
Posts: 421
From: none of your business
Registered: Jun 2017
|
posted October 18, 2019 02:02 PM
My HAWKEYE Mod Video
Kamel, I was holding the camera by hand in the first test clip
Your 3D print is very good.
The small rings you sent. is that to lock the focus on the lens?
Many days of testing now. I am very happy so far.
I have a lot to learn in post processing.
Right now, I am using Film9 on a 50ft reel.
I know how to use it, but maybe not to it's best.
I have noticed that missing it's grey plastic facia panel, the scanner now tilts forward.
The front feet are on the bottom of the plastic. Couple of stick on rubber pads will fix this.
It still works, but with a slight lean forward, it makes threading a film slighty fiddly.
It makes sense to try and set the claw to be down, when threading a film, just makes it easier to get under the tabs.
It wouldnt take long with a Dremmel to cut a bit out of the original facia and make it fit back on
Like terminator with half of it's face missing [ October 19, 2019, 03:01 AM: Message edited by: Mike Spice ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
David Brown
Film Handler
Posts: 42
From: Centerville, UT, USA
Registered: Oct 2019
|
posted October 18, 2019 07:21 PM
Mike Thanks for that walk thru! I'm about to open up My Wolverine to determine the roller screw sizes. I guess I'll be in the second round of boards.
My take on BMP or TIF is they can be identical, a Tif can be a lot more. BMP is only 8bit, a tif can be 16bit. I don't know what's being saved, but even the Wolverine's sensor could output a 12 bit raw image. Adobe's DNG file is really a Tif.
Can you check the saved tifs you're getting for 16bit?
Never mind ... The sensor captures at 8 bit. This spec might be abreviated, others I've seen show higher values for RGB than MJPG.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aiZN7l25mZ2CUj57uvBHAVfFnTqRUE87
Kamel I already had what I was asking you for!@#$% "kamel_Read Me First-IK_20190912.pdf" I should have read it first!
From the inserts I ordered M3x3 insert, hoping it will fit your pulley design.The bolts are M3x6.
https://www.amazon.com/Uxcell-a16041800ux0824-Knurled-Threaded-Embedment/dp/B01IYWTCWW/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=brass+insert&qid=1571455465&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=8-9
I might print your lens tester, I'm still looking for another lens. The 12mm is too wide, the 16mm has too shallow a DOF, so I'm considering a 12mm CS mount. There are M12_CS adapters and some lenses come with adjustable aperature. [ October 18, 2019, 11:01 PM: Message edited by: David Brown ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Bruce Davis
Film Handler
Posts: 47
From: Adelaide, Australia
Registered: Sep 2019
|
posted October 19, 2019 12:13 AM
Kamel Ikhlef not sure if I understand your question, IC Capture 2.4 (I assume we all use this) has a limited range of capture resolutions. The 1600x1200 capture size has the same frame ratio as 1440x1080 (1600x0.9=1440 and 1200x0.9=1080).
With the position of camera/lens on my Wolverine/Hawkeye/Pro (Version 7 board) at a 1600x1200 capture resolution the left hand side of the super 8 frame is cut off slightly, see image below. If a slight re-positioning of the camera were possible to overcome the cut off then 1600x1200 would be good, as it is I use 1920x1080 and this resolution produces almost the same file size (1600x1200=5512KB 1920x1080=6076KB in Tiff format).
EDIT NOTE! after the above comment about 1600x1200 cutting off the left side I have just noticed a setting in IC Capture 2.4 under tab "Partial Scan" (set to "Auto-center" by default) will allow the frame to be moved sideways and up - down. Just still learning to use this, SORRY for the confusion.
1600 x 1200 left side cut off
1920 x 1080 full frame is visible, compare with above image
Mike Spice your Wolverine/Hawkeye looks good, the Mod video is great, I liked it. Mike I am just starting out on this process so I definatley can not educate you as you would know a lot more than I do. I am trying establish a system from Capture to finished video, have not had any luck as yet. Can not seem to be able to save using Video Fred's script without the dual window format before and after.
Normally I do capture in TIFF and only used bitmap files to test for detail at various resolution captures (bitmap is lossless and 24bit and the TIFF I captured are lossless but only 8bit). Regards - Bruce
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mike Spice
Master Film Handler
Posts: 421
From: none of your business
Registered: Jun 2017
|
posted October 19, 2019 01:42 AM
Bruce You've just taught me about partial scan in the IC software, so now I have a better centered image, thanks!
I seem to remember it being in stans pdf file, but so many details in the last couple of weeks, it's easy to forget a small detail in the rush to make things work.
We are all learning from each other, or as it's called in my working life, "knowledge exchange"
I too am trying to find a workflow that is going to be a success...
I have little or no colour correcting experience other than a bit of highlight and shadows manipulation in FastStone, for one or two navy photos I post.
I have watched many hours of colour correcting tutorials at you tube, using davinci resolve, but sadly my i5 laptop just about grinds to a halt, so I am stuck with my cheap and cheerful MoviePlus X6 for the foreseeable.
At work I have access to super fast macs and final cut x, so next week I will take some images on a stick and see what I can come up with before I consider buying a new desktop!
VirtualDub is doing my image sequence, altho I found out last night Shotcut will do image sequence, but it crashed when I gave it a quick test last night. I shall try again..
There is some jitter in my scans, I am going to test a strip of film with and without using the takeup.
I wonder if it is possible the take up advances a little more than the film thro the gate.....the tension on the film to the take up is quite tight.
I forgot to mention that I had to butcher the hole for the usb socket as it didn't quite match up. I only had nose pliers handy, so it's rough as can be.... No worries, just an observation
Here's a question for any VirtualDub users, when you compile and image sequence, what format do you export in for further editing?
At the moment I am using h264 but that is obviously compressing the video, so further editing and exporting is only going to make it look worse isn't it?
Uncompressed saves from Vdub will be enormous...
As it is, a 50ft super8 reel in bmp came out at around 18Gb last night from the capture software.
It took 2 hours 53 minutes to scan.
I am still getting frame jitter
Here is a jitter test scan
The same strip of film, scanned on the higher speed. The no take up clip had a bit of colour added in the camera properties before scanning, to see what can be achieved.
I am now having success with Shotcut and liking the result. it can load an image sequence, crop and export, all in one go.
I have created a template at 18fps 1440x1080 I apply a crop and then export. Export so far has been h264 but I will look at pro res which will be better for extensive editing. Have done a couple of colour enhancements too, which I have liked.
All good, for now I have returned to using my drop box so I can continue to develop a workflow and my scans are not wasted.
Early bugs like timing on the take up can easily be ironed out in due course.. [ October 19, 2019, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Mike Spice ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
David Brown
Film Handler
Posts: 42
From: Centerville, UT, USA
Registered: Oct 2019
|
posted October 19, 2019 08:03 PM
Mike Let me recommend you try PhotoscapeX. I'm stunned by it and I already have 3 photo editors, Lightroom, Photoshop, and Photolab2. I like this so well that I will keep it on my machine. I would pay $$, but this is FREE. There is a pro version at $40, but I've not been able to find information on the upgraded tools. Some seem useful,but everything needed to correct the photos is already there in the free version.
Example: I'm not capturing frames yet, so I dumped one of my Wolverine captures to frames. It was close to 3000 frames from a 50 ft roll. This one had severe scene changes from indoors/dark, to outdoors/blue without the daylight filter. Some were good too.
In BATCH mode, I was able to select all 3000 frames (ctrl a) and drag them to the batch window. Selecting AUTO levels, AUTO color, & AUTO contrast. Then I cropped the image to hide the sprockets and frame bars. I overscan the captures. I hit save. 3000 frames took 4 minutes to process. My computer is not real fast. It is 1 year old. Now I have 3000 frames ready to load in to Vegas and no need to do color or exposure correction. I was checking for capacity of Photoscape X. Can it handle massive numbers of frames?
Then stretching the folder window to the right, I was able to see ~250 frames at once. Easy to see where the scenes changed from dark to light or blue. Just selecting the scene, I adjusted the settings to my liking manually and saved the scene (x number of frames) as scene1_name.tif, and so on.
Pretty fast either way and all a very visual process. Try it, it's free.
web page
This forum software ???????? I must edit because I can't post again. Kamel I'm all over this 2k/4k thing. I think we need to go to a CS or C mount lens. There is a physical conflict now. Stan has made a spread sheet in excel that I need to study. I wonder if it will be valid for a larger lens like CS or C. S mount seems to be exhausted for he current sensor 12,16,& 25mm. A CS or C would have a crop factor with the same sensor, enlarging the captured image. I don't know how to calculate that either.
A note again. BMP is an ancient file type. It is only 8 bit. TIF is a better choise as it can handle 8 or 16 bit. Windows shows the info panel on Mikes file as 24bit color. That is confusing to most. Monitors and graphics cards show settings at 24 or 32 bit color. 24 bit color is adding all the colors together. 8 bit is 8bit for red, blue ,and green. Only 256 shades of red or green or blue (2^8). 16 bit color is 16 million shades of each. Use BMP or TIF for 8 bit. 32 bit color is another 8 shades of transparency.
How is the capstan working for you? I would like to add it even though I don't have too many damaged sprockets. Wolverine hangs on a failing cement splice usually.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Mike Spice
Master Film Handler
Posts: 421
From: none of your business
Registered: Jun 2017
|
posted October 20, 2019 03:31 AM
Bruce Thanks for the tips on which lossless codec is good to use. I was aware I had to go lossless but in my early tests I just wanted something small and quick to work with .
I am trying a Largarith export now and used a VDub crop to take the frame to 1320x948
It came out full of funny color artifacts and unwatchable, I will persevere
A 1'44 clip of 1873 tiff images (9.74gb) comes out at 1.56gb so roughly 1Gb per minute using the largarith codec.
The same clip saved using the ffmpeg huffyuv came out at 4.25Gb and was just a jumbled up mess of coloured snow.
I've done the same test without any crop and still jumbled up video, so I'm not sure what is going on there.
I think I was the first person to suggest not using the take up and letting the film drop in to a tub.
I have done this with 400ft reels with great success. I would rather not have to do it with the mod, as the scan time increases significantly and this would risk more airborne dust being attracted to the film and also more risk of film damage should it be disturbed.
Avisynth is amazing, but I haven't got my head round it yet, altho I have used Film9 a few times.
David Thanks for the tip about Photoscape X I have some time off soon, so I will give it a look then.
Stan Regards the film guides, I am using Kamel's 3D rolling guides now which let the film travel very easily and also do not touch the surface of the film.
I'd like to keep using those, so for now the drop box will continue to be used.
I am aware the recent comparison clip was washed out and messed up, I've clocked up around 22 hours in the last two days, trying out all kinds of different methods and I have changed the camera settings way too much.
I have changed just about every parameter just to see where things go, it was clear that example was washed out, but I was impressed with certain aspects of it.
Tired eyes don't help .....
My next task will be to find a nicely exposed strip of film and re set the camera to something more sensible....
A pleasant way to spend a sunday afternoon.
Something I would appreciate is to know what 'device' settings people who have the DFM 72BUC02-ML image sensor are using.
I have 'auto' set for everything today, but I would be very interested to hear what settings you are using.
Today's scan is very good in my opinion, perhaps a little washed out in places. Bright white Navy uniform and bright sunshine, everything on the image sensor set to auto.
here is my sunday scan. very happy with this, it is not perfect, but I am getting there [ October 20, 2019, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: Mike Spice ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Kamel Ikhlef
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 213
From: Arches, France
Registered: Oct 2018
|
posted October 21, 2019 10:08 AM
Stan, In fact after information from Scorpion Vision, they can provide it with ir cut block but the delay is very long (4/6 weeks) + very high shipping costs. it's a pity that seems to be a good M12 macro low distortion lens. To think...
For the little jitter problem, I can rethink the Motor mount design like this, but will it have the same efficiency?:
I do not know how it works now, but would not there be a slight timing shift take-up (msp430) for winding compared to frame-by-frame scrolling. Well, I do not know !?! Mike don't use the capstan system and use only 2 pulleys after the film gate !?!? Help ! Stan...
Not Hurry, have good holidays ! [ October 21, 2019, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Kamel Ikhlef ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Mike Spice
Master Film Handler
Posts: 421
From: none of your business
Registered: Jun 2017
|
posted October 21, 2019 11:20 AM
Thanks for the comments on the latest scan.
I will re visit it to see if I can tone down the hot white areas and take some yellow out.
For my first 30 hours of testing, it's the best so far, there is room for improvement of course.
I put it side by side with the wolverine scan of the same marching and the difference is striking in favour of Hawkeye.
Phew....
Stan presumably it is possible to retime the pulse on the take up for those with and without capstan?
I would like to use take up reels, but for the time being, my trusty drop box is doing rock solid scans, which puts a smile on my face.
I racked up 11 hours friday, 17 hours saturday and 6 hours sunnday with the scanner and software, so I am at a point where I am now completely confident in the process, I just have to have more time with the software settings.
Some days off next week, set aside for cine films...
I like the look of the lens Kamel mentions, so what is 'No IR' I presume that is infra red?
What effect would not having IR in a lens produce?
My workflow for now is tiff scan, VirtualDub assemble, FPS, Crop and export in h264
That is fine for anything that won't need further editing, which for now, will suit me.
I am going to try and learn the camera settings well enough to control the end result in the scan as much as possible, rather than post.
The fact I can stop a scan on one frame, adjust settings and then continue scanning is a great help in that respect.
I do like the way I can scan a length of film, stop the machine, move the film along and continue scanning, without ending up with broken video files as with the wolverine
That is a real bonus.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|